Mother seeks to visit her children

A state agency will decide whether a Toulon mother who was imprisoned for abandoning her baby along a country road will be allowed to visit her children.

Kendra Meaker, 20, was paroled from state prison last month after serving six months of a three-year sentence on a charge of obstructing justice. She was charged with lying to authorities after reporting her 3-week-old daughter missing on Sept. 27, 2012.

Meaker appeared in Stark County Circuit Court Friday for a hearing on whether she could visit her children — the child she abandoned and her older sister.

Meaker is seeking supervised visitation and hopes eventually to be reunited with her children. She said at Friday’s hearing that she is receiving counseling at the Bethany Center for Children and Families services in Moline. That agency is also overseeing the care of her children.

Circuit Judge Scott Shore said Friday that the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) will decide whether to grant supervised visitation. Meaker would be required to continue the counseling, take prescribed medication and seeking a future means of support or further education to support her children.

If DCFS approves, Meaker could be granted supervised visitation with her children within the next two weeks.

Meaker initially reported to authorities that she had left the infant and an 11-month-old sister in the car while she ran in to mail a package at the Toulon Post Office.

Hours later the baby was located by volunteer searchers, and Meaker admitted leaving the child near the road.

Meaker was in the Stark County Jail for about six months before being sentenced. She received day for day credit for time served at county jail in conjunction with her prison sentence.

The two children have remained in the custody of their maternal grandparents since the incident. At the time of Meaker’s arrest she and the children’s father, Timothy Thompson, were also living with Kendra’s parents in Toulon. Thompson now lives in Kewanee.

Since Meaker’s release she has been living with relatives. A condition of her parole is that she not be allowed to have contact with the children.